


Zodiac Christmas Cookies

by orphan_account



Category: Fruits Basket
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Baking, Christmas Cookies, F/M, Genderbending, Genderswap, Genderswapping characters is actually pretty hard, Kyo is named Kyoka, Kyoka Swears Alot, Tohru is named Tokuro, Tokuro has no right to be this adorable, and I had to find new names for everybody phew, my part of a secret santa gift, the dynamics all shift slightly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:48:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22086655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Tokuro has been living with the Sohma family for some time, and now it's nearly Christmas he wants to make something nice for everyone. It isn't long before Kyoka offers to help, despite her plans for the day being an overdue day-long cat-nap, but she finds it increasingly difficult to hide her feelings from him. Especially when he's so adorable and he doesn't even know it! Curse these festive zodiac cookies.
Relationships: (Genderbent), Honda Tohru/Sohma Kyou
Comments: 1
Kudos: 22





	Zodiac Christmas Cookies

**Author's Note:**

> I entered into the Furuba Holiday Gift Exchange and my giftee said that they'd love something genderbent! And while I have never written a gender swap fic before in my entire life, I am always up for new writing challenges. And boy, this was a challenge. I was constantly writing the wrong pronouns, then having to go back and fix them (so if you find any I missed, please let me know!) and it changed the dynamics and personalities a little I think. It was a really interesting exercise in getting into the core of what makes each character 'them'. So I loved writing this! It was great fun. 
> 
> Also I hope my choice of names is okay - I went less with making them almost identical, save for a letter or two, and more like capturing the 'essence' of the original name by trying to keep similar letters or sounds or syllables for them even when they're different. (I actually made sure these were all real names rather than making them up.) 
> 
> Happy holidays to my giftee, Allison! Hope you like it!

It’s an unseasonably sunny day for the ass-end of December, Kyoka decides, as she practically burrows herself further down into her futon. It makes the task of getting out of bed practically impossible, when she’s so warm and comfy, and it feels like forever since she had a day off from school to just enjoy an extra-long nap. An overdue extra-long nap.

She was usually the first one up in the house, though sometimes Tokuro was already making breakfast by the time she came into the kitchen. Kyoka often found herself wondering if he even slept those nights. He always seemed to be smiling a little bit too hard those mornings – with a smile that looked not quite right, despite how hard he was obviously forcing it on there. Bad dreams maybe?

Not that it was any of her business.

Kyoka turns over and huffs into her blanket, trying to force out the thought of Tokuro’s sad smile. Today was a day of napping. That included no annoying dogs or rats and definitely no thinking about _him_.

As if summoned by the very thought, Kyoka perks up automatically as she hears the soft tones of Tokuro drifting up through the floorboards. She immediately pulls her duvet up over her head, but even that isn’t enough to drown out the sound of Shihori’s cackle of a laugh that answers him and assaults her ears. Tokuro’s pitch raises, though now she can’t hear what he’s saying, and Kyoka frowns as she pulls the quilt back down. She’s not quite sure why it bothers her so much when something is making him unhappy, but even just the idea of Shihori being a nuisance to him this early in the morning is making her face scrunch up in annoyance.

Someone needs to get that dog a leash.

Kyoka finally throws off the blanket completely and shoves on the closest clothes to her she can reach; a quick glance reveals she’s wearing a black sweater and khaki cargo pants, then she runs a quick hand through her orange bob, hoping it’s not too tangled from sleep, as she pounds down the stairs barefooted.

Shihori looks up and freezes in place as Kyoka enters the kitchen, wooden spoon deep into her mouth, while Tokuro flaps his hands in a panic beside her.

“P-Please put the spoon down Shihori, y-you could get sick from raw cookie batter like that,” he says with a concern that makes his voice fast and high.

“Buh itsh sho tashty,” Shihori just about manages, with her mouth still around the spoon, as she places a hand to her cheek and swoons.

Kyoka makes a disgusted sound in the back of her throat that makes Tokuro jump on the spot as he turns in surprise to see her in the entrance to the kitchen, though it only takes a beat for his face to brighten instantly into a smile. Kyoka stamps _(hard)_ on the impulse to smile back.

“Good morning Kyoka!” Tokuro chirps.

Kyoka folds her arms tight over her chest. “M-Morning,” she acknowledges, then turns to Shihori with a scowl. “You’re disgusting.”

Shihori is dressed in one of her more casual kimonos, open so low on the chest that it borders on inappropriate, and there’s a bag over her shoulder.

“You’re going out?” Kyoka asks out loud.

“Mm,” Shihori hums, licking the spoon thoroughly clean before she hands it to a concerned looking Tokuro. “Only to the main estate. Oh, don’t look at me like that Tokuro, don’t you know that dogs have iron stomachs?”

“O-Oh, they do?”

“Absolutely. I can eat anything, and I’ll be totally fine.”

Kyoka blinks. “What? That’s not true.” But her voice has less fire in it that she wants as doubt creeps in, and she glances at Tokuro as if his expression might tell her the truth, even though he always agrees with whatever Shihori says as much as she does.

Goddamn that dog’s gold-class bullshitting always makes her doubt the stuff she already knows is true.

“Oh, Kyoka,” Shihori wails, as if fatally wounded, “so little faith in what I tell you. Tokuro always believes me.”

 _I’m supposed to be napping_ , Kyoka remembers with an internal huff as she resists the urge to outright growl, _but instead I’m dealing with the fucking theatrics of the ‘adult’ of the house_.

“I’ve even eaten Hatsumi’s cooking,” Shihori adds in a proud voice, “though I suppose if she’d ever poisoned me, she could have just treated me straight after. Not really in any danger if a doctor gives you food poisoning, right?”

“Unless she does it on purpose,” Kyoka snaps.

Shihori cackles another laugh and shakes her head, though Kyoka notices she doesn’t disagree. She finally gives them both a wink and turns to leave the room. “Have a fun morning you two, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Kyoka chokes out a cracked, “Just go already!”

Another cackle and Shihori is finally gone. The front door slides shut with a definitive click.

Kyoka sighs loudly and feels her shoulders sag, feeling like she’s just lost some of the years off her life. When she turns back to Tokuro he’s already at the sink washing the spoon Shihiro had just been licking for dear life (gods, she’s gross) and drying it off with a towel. Only then does she notice the big bowl of what must be cookie batter on the table, the big pile of plastic cookie cutter shapes, and the tubes of different coloured icing covering almost every available surface.

“What’s all this?”

Tokuro brightens and a soft embarrassed blush blooms onto his nose.

Kyoka feels like someone has punched her in the chest and kicked her in the stomach all at once. She hadn’t really paid attention to him when she’d first walked into the kitchen, trying to deal with the headache that was Shihori, but now he’s all she can look at and, _shit_ , the boy is trying to kill her. He’s wearing an oversized sweater in a brown that’s almost the same shade as his floppy hair, underneath denim overalls. She remembers Tokuro bashfully telling her that he has no fashion sense once, and that he prefers plainer clothes, but even at the time she could only stare blankly back in amazement because he clearly has no clue that this stuff makes him look cute as hell.

It makes her a bit self-conscious of her hastily thrown on clothes, creased from the floor, and her un-tied, un-brushed hair.

Kyoka realises his brown doe-eyes are wide and she’s completely missed what he’s just said. “What?” she snaps, harsher than she intended as she tries to wrestle her feelings back under control.

He blinks and goes back to the bowl of cookie dough. “O-Oh, um, I said I’m baking holiday cookies. B-But I didn’t want them to be just Christmas themed, so I thought I’d make them… festive… zodiac… animals.” Tokuro ducks his head down with a shy smile.

 _That’s so him_ , Kyoka thinks with a fondness she wishes she could stop as easily as she stops the small laugh that wants to escape her lips.

The big pile of random cookie cutters does seem to contain a whole collection of different animal shapes, so Kyoka makes her way over and picks them up at random. They’re all there: rat, cow, tiger, rabbit… the whole zodiac. A shape catches her eye and she realises there’s a cat shaped on there too. It makes something fluttery and warm flap in her chest.

By the time she’s turned back around Tokuro has started rolling out some of the dough.

“And let me guess, you’re gonna to give them out to everyone, right.” It’s not even posed as a question, because she already knows the answer.

Tokuro nods excitedly. “Yes!”

Kyoka definitely can’t stop the smile that tugs up her lips then, and without another word she begins sorting out the shapes into order. She frowns at the rat shape as she places it at the head of the group, then grins to herself as she pushes it down and puts the cat cutter there instead.

“Kyoka?”

“Yeah?”

“Um…”

“I’m helpin’. That a problem?”

“N-No! It’s just… you don’t have to. I don’t want to take up your time on our day off school.”

Kyoka snorts. “It’s fine. Not like I’ve got anythin’ else to do anyways.” She ignores the thought of her futon.

Tokuro says thank you each time Kyoka hands him a shape cutter and it winds her up slowly more and more each time. His soft voice is so shrill and high when he’s panicked (which is often) but it sounds entirely different when it’s just the two of them. Sometimes she could kid herself that he has this voice just for her. She shakes her head and folds her arms again as Tokuro pushes down on the last shape and places each cookie onto a baking tray for the oven.

The instant the oven door is pushed closed Tokuro says, “Phew,” and wipes a hand over his forehead, brushing across his fringe and messing it up.

Kyoka feels an unexpected jolt of longing to brush it back into place. Instead she says, “Your fringe looks dumb.”

Tokuro laughs and smooths it back down.

Kyoka wants to jump into the oven with the cookies.

“So, what’s with all the icing?” she says, trying desperately to go for ‘I’m so casual, I definitely wasn’t thinking of touching your hair’.

“Well, I wanted to do zodiac animals, but I still wanted them to be festive, so I’m going to put different coloured scarves on them. And I want to do all the animals in different colours too. So I, well, I needed lots of tubes,” Tokuro says, as he turns the base on a kitchen timer with a few clicks.

“Seems like a lotta trouble to go to for some cookies.”

“Oh no, I don’t mind, it’s no trouble at all really. I just… I like doing something nice for everyone. And with it being nearly Christmas and everything, I thought this would be fun.” He smiles. “I don’t really have much money to spend on Christmas presents, and it’s not like they’re going to be especially professional looking cookies, but…”

“Look, everyone’s gonna appreciate anything you make them. Trust me. And don’t even worry about presents or nothing. Buying presents for all the zodiac members would be insane – there’s no way you earn enough money to shell out that much. Especially since half of ‘em don’t even deserve you spendin’ your money on them in the first place.”

Tokuro’s face softens as he rubs the back of his neck self-consciously. “B-But, um- I think your family- the other zodiac members- I feel like they’ve been so nice to me. And it’s nice to return those feelings in something tangible at Christmas. Something that says, ‘thank you for knowing me’. I couldn’t not get them anything, even if it’s small.”

Kyoka feels her cheeks warming and she looks away sharply to hide the blush she knows will be there. “Still think some of them don’t deserve it,” she gripes, “especially Yukari.”

Tokuro laughs good-naturedly and turns to wash up the cooking equipment he’s finished using in the sink. “Everyone deserves a gift at Christmas,” he says belatedly, and Kyoka notices his smile has faded as he looks at the water.

She wonders if he feels his dad’s loss more at this time of the year. She wonders what kind of gifts they got each other. Did he bake cookies for him too? She bets that Kyodo Honda spoilt his son rotten at this time of year. But with the things that really mattered; like time spent together, love, good times, that sort of thing. It sounded like the Christmases she’d spent with Master, who’d always tried her hardest to make it a special time for Kyoka. Up until Master had taken her in, she hadn't had a single a happy Christmas time throughout her entire shitty childhood.

Kyoka moves to the sink with the dishtowel and begins to dry off some of the clean cookie cutters, which makes Tokuro look up in surprise and take a breath (to probably tell her that she doesn’t need to help) but she shrugs and snaps, “I wanna help,” before he can get a word out.

She cringes at her own tone and delivery, and desperately wishes she could spend a whole conversation with him without snapping or saying something she didn’t mean, but when she peeks a look over at him, ready to apologise, his smile has returned. Kyoka hopes there’ll come a day when she can speak to him without messing up and losing her cool, but she’s glad it looks like he knows her well enough to know that she doesn’t mean it. It makes her feel like they’ve got something unspoken between them, because he knows her better than anyone her own age has ever done.

The kitchen timer rings just as Tokuro is about hand over the mixing bowl for her to dry, and it makes him jump so badly that he loses his grip and drops it back into the sink with a splash that peppers them both in soapy water. Kyoka flinches backwards while Tokuro yelps.

“I-I-I’m so sorry Kyoka!” he says in a fluster, turning to her immediately.

Kyoka splutters and wipes her face. “It’s fine. It’s fine. Jeez, you’d think you’d just accidentally murdered someone or somethin’ the way you panic.”

“I’m sorry!” he repeats, his expression worried.

Kyoka lets out a laugh. “Stop apologising.”

“Sorr-” He clamps a hand to his mouth.

“That’s better,” Kyoka says with another laugh. She sighs as she continues warmly, “You’ve got bubbles on your face.” Then without thinking she reaches out a hand and lightly brushes away the bubbles from his cheek.

She pauses.

Tokuro’s eyes are wide above the hand still clamped to his mouth.

Kyoka snatches her hand back and rubs her own face free of bubbles, trying not to let her internal screaming show on her face; _Why did I do that?_ _Don’t fucking caress his fucking cheek like that, what will he think?!_

There’s an awkward pause while Kyoka tries to think of something to say, until Tokuro suddenly yelps again. “The cookies!” He rushes over to open the oven door and he’s about to reach in for the baking tray until Kyoka reacts just in enough time to throw an oven glove at him.

“Gloves!” she chokes out, trying not to let the image of him grabbing the tray with his bare hands float into her mind.

Tokuro thanks her in a wobbly voice as he pulls the glove on, grabs the tray, and sets it down onto the counter. He sighs deeply and wipes his gloved hand across his forehead while Kyoka feels her whole body unclench as she lets out a breath.

“They’re fine,” Tokuro whispers in a happy voice, “they’re safe. A perfect golden brown.”

“Maybe you should save the washing up for after the cookies are done next time,” Kyoka suggests, even though she knows, with a cold, guilty feeling in her gut, that it was more her fault that he got distracted than anything.

“Mm,” he hums in agreement, smiling at his creations, “I think you’re probably right.”

Kyoka frowns at how readily he agreed with her, but she pushes her guilt away – the cookies turned out fine anyway, didn’t they? – and instead grabs a plate from the cupboard and fans the food gently to cool them down quicker for the icing. Tokuro beams at her and she looks resolutely down.

Once they’re cool enough Kyoka puts the plate down and watches intently as Tokuro pipes icing over them with surprisingly steady hands. Whenever he needs a new colour, she helps find the tube he needs and hands it over. Their fingers brush together once or twice and they nearly drop the tubes.

“You think we could mix some chilli powder into this one?” Kyoka asks cheekily as Tokuro begins to pipe lilac icing over the rat shaped cookie. “Could be like a Christmas surprise,” she adds with a barely restrained laugh at Tokuro’s panicked refusal. “I’m just joking. Wouldn’t want her to think you can’t cook or somethin’ I guess.”

She wonders if she imagines the extra care Tokuro takes in decorating the cat shaped cookie. Or the light blush on his cheeks as he looks up and smiles at her when he’s done.

They both laugh at their combined confusion of how to make the seahorse cookie look like it’s wearing a scarf, and how sincerely Tokuro tries to give it a happy expression. It doesn’t really work, but she thinks it’s the happiest looking seahorse she’s ever seen anyway.

When all thirteen are done they both stand back and admire the festive looking zodiac animals. But Kyoka’s face scrunches into a deep frown as she counts them all again, and she looks up at Tokuro, trying to keep her voice steady as she asks, “Wait, where’s yours?”

How had she only just noticed that there are only thirteen cookies there. Why didn’t he make one for himself?

Tokuro laughs lightly and looks down. “Oh, well, since I’m the one making them, I didn’t think I should make myself one. It seemed greedy somehow. And besides, they’re all gifts for the Sohma family. Not for me.”

“But you _are_ part of the Sohma family,” Kyoka huffs before she can stop herself. She realises what words have tumbled out of her mouth when Tokuro’s wide eyes snap back up to hers. He looks a bit like he’s about to cry and she doesn’t know how she’ll deal with that so her voice comes out rougher when she tries to backtrack and say, “W-Well- I-I mean, y’know- you live here with us and- it’s like you might as well be part of the family or something. As messed up as it is…”

Tokuro is practically beaming at her, his whole face lit up by some expression that Kyoka can’t even comprehend. Something like family. Belonging.

“Alright, alright, look, just dry off that mixing bowl and grab me out the ingredients.”

“Huh?”

“The mixing bowl. The ingredients. So I can make another cookie.”

“Wh- N-No, don’t got to any trouble for me!”

“It’s no trouble at all,” Kyoka says, echoing exactly what he’d said to her. “I want to.”

They both blink at each other in silence, and she wonders if her blush looks as intense as his, then he finally follows her instructions.

Kyoka mixes up what she needs to and rolls out the dough, then reaches hesitantly for the cat shaped cookie cutter.

She hopes her voice holds steady as she says, “Since you don’t have any other shapes I’m just gonna use this one again, okay?”

“Y-Yes! I told my dad that I’d be born in the year of the cat, so we can both be the cat cookies. I’d love that!”

He smiles and Kyoka’s entirely sure she must still be asleep in her futon and none of this has really happened at all.

When they’d had their first real conversation, where Tokuro had confessed that he’d wanted to change his zodiac animal for the cat after his dad told him the old zodiac folk tale, Kyoka had been flustered as hell, but some part of her still screamed that it was a lie. She hadn’t known Tokuro back then, and she didn’t know that he was the most genuine person she’d ever met or will meet. To hear him say it again, now, when she knew he meant it – that he’s happy to be lumped into the ‘year of the cat’ with her – it’s both the scariest and best thing she thinks she’s ever experienced. “I’ll decorate it after, so you’ll know which one is for you,” she says eventually, swallowing the lump in her throat. “And you can make whatever else you want with this leftover dough.”

Tokuro excitedly gets out a knife and begins cutting out more festive shapes by hand while Kyoka places the extra cat cookie on the baking tray, ready to go into the oven with the others when Tokuro has finished.

“It’s a Santa hat,” he proclaims proudly as he lays an oddly shaped cookie on the tray.

“Hm, looks like a banana with fluff on the end to me.”

“Oh no, really? Do you think it’s too thin?”

“I’m kiddin’. Looks fine. Almost as good as the Christmas tree there.”

“Th-That’s supposed to be an elf…”


End file.
